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Greenbacks back: CU researchers help stock lake with rare state fish

By Joe Rubino

Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
08/15/2014 10:45:49 PM MDT

Updated:
08/15/2014 10:47:07 PM MDT

After finally being separated from the counterfeits, hundreds of "legitimate" greenback cutthroat trout this month were returned to their native South Platte River basin thanks, in part, to the work of University of Colorado researchers.

About 1,200 juvenile greenbacks, raised in state and federally managed hatcheries, were released into Zimmerman Lake, about 45 miles west of Fort Collins, on Aug. 8, according to CU.

It is potentially the first time true greenback cutthroat trout, Colorado's official state fish, have been stocked in the South Platte River basin in a century or more.

The release comes two years after Jessica Metcalf, a CU senior research associate who works at the university's BioFrontiers Institute, led and published a study highlighting the muddled situation surrounding diversity and distribution of Colorado's cutthroat trout species strains.

A revelation of that study, based on DNA samples from museum specimens collected as far back as 150 years ago, is that only one population of legitimate South Platte greenbacks remained in existence, surprisingly in tiny Bear Creek, a part of the Arkansas River drainage.

With the help of the Greenback Cutthroat Trout Recovery Team, including members from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, conservationists were able to replicate about 3,500 of the fish in hatcheries prior to the stocking event.

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"I got to put the first bucket of fish in there," Metcalf said last week. "It was a pretty amazing experience. I think it was very celebratory for a lot of people."

Metcalf, who has a doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology, began studying cutthroat trout genetics as a CU graduate student in 2001 after her Ph.D. adviser, professor Andrew Martin, told her about a conservation genetics project focused on the fish. The research Metcalf did for her Ph.D. highlighted that cutthroat trout around Colorado were likely mislabeled and misidentified because stocking efforts from the late 1800s and early 1900s mixed up subspecies of the fish. Those findings were published in 2007, Metcalf said.

Martin helped Metcalf spearhead the 2012 study that shed light on the greenback population in Bear Creek, confirmed by the DNA of museum greenback samples. Ironically, those fish likely only made it into the previously fishless stream because of the stocking efforts of an area hotelier, Metcalf said.

"This recovery effort has been a joint project of many different people with different interests and backgrounds combining their energy toward one specific goal," Martin said, according to a CU news release. "We have a chance to bring a native species back from the brink and I'm happy to be part of it."

Martin and his CU students for the next several years will be keeping tabs on 200 of the greenbacks in Zimmerman Lake, seeking to assess the success of the stocking effort.

Kevin Rogers, a research scientist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife who collected samples of DNA from modern-day trout for the study, said licensed anglers are now free to catch and release the Zimmerman Lake greenbacks, but he added that might not be much fun as the juveniles are only about 4 inches long right now.

With more greenbacks still being housed in state and federal hatcheries, the species' future looks bright to Metcalf.

"I think next summer we'll see a lot more stocking events," she said. "It's our state fish. Conserving the greenback cutthroat trout is part of the Colorado Front Range legacy, and a lot of people care about it."

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